Blood Bath
by CyberPagan
Summary: Piper deals with some unfinished business with a 16th Century vampire


"Blood Bath"  
  


It was night. Piper sat in her room, listening to her relaxing New Age music, looking over some plans for when the Smashing Pumpkins would play at P3. It was a big event. Nobody this famous (and awesome!) had ever performed at P3.  
Suddenly, she heard the voice of someone say, "Die creature of the night!" Piper thought it was one of Phoebe's horror movies.  
"Phoebe, could you turn down the volume!" yelled Piper. She didn't hear anything else, so she assumed Phoebe had done so and continued with her plans.  
Then she heard screaming and the sound of knives falling onto a stone floor. She was starting to get annoyed.  
_"Phoebe! Please turn down the freaking volume!"_ she shouted angrily. But that didn't help. She sighed to herself and walked over to Phoebe's room.  
She slammed open the door, babbling about how if Phoebe were to share a house, she had to make sacrifices-only to find her lying asleep. The TV was off. And Phoebe was the only Halliwell who liked monster movies.  
Piper turned on the set to find the most recent channel watched was CNN. She pressed "Eject" on the VCR several times, but nothing came out.  
"What the hell?" said Piper.  
Piper felt herself being pushed by an unseen force onto the wall. She felt something pricking at her hands and blood trickling down her palms onto her arms and clothes. She screamed bloody murder.  
Phoebe immediately awoke to see her sister bleeding.  
"Piper! Oh my God!" said Phoebe.  
"Phoebe, what's going on?" asked Piper.  
Piper was released on fell face first on the floor. She regained her strength and stood up. The blood had vanished from her hands, arms, and clothes. The pain and mark of the wounds were also gone.  
"Phoebe, what just happened?" asked Piper.  
"I don't know. You don't think you just had a stigmata, do you?"  
"After what I've seen, I'll believe anything. But I'm a Witch, so I doubt I'd get stigmatas."  
"Let's check the Book of Shadows. You need help up the stairs?"  
"No, I'm fine. I'll just feel better after I know what it is."  
"Okay."  
They walked up to the attic to find the pages of the Book turning themselves again. The pages stopped at "Past Life Regression."  
"Phoebe," said Piper, "you don't think I had a past life regression like you did, do you?"  
"Maybe you did," said Phoebe. "What happened to you isn't that different from what happened to me that one time."  
"But Phoebe," said Piper, "can it wait awhile? Smashing Pumpkins are playing at P3 tonight! This is important! I have a lot of work to do!"  
"No, Piper," said Phoebe, shaking her head seriously. "You got that sign for a reason. Don't wait another second. Cast the spell."  
Piper cast it:  


_"Remove the chains of time and space.  
And make my Spirit soar.  
Let my mortal arms embrace.  
The life that haunts before."  
  
_

She fell into a deep trance. She found herself inside a cart being driven towards a castle. She was lying in a pile of many other girls. Her clothes were that of a Dutch maiden. She could see a woman with blood dripping out of her mouth looking out the window, smiling wickedly at them.  
"Where are we going?" she asked.  
"Bathory's castle," said a girl.  
"Why are we going there?" asked Piper.  
"We're going to be impaled," said someone. (There were so many people in the cart that it was hard to tell who was speaking.)  
"Impaled?" exclaimed Piper.  
"Aye," said someone. "The Blood Countess is going to use us in her youth spells. At least, that's what the driver says."  
They reached the castle and the driver unloaded the girls onto a wagon and drove them into the dungeon.  
The girls were chained onto the walls and the woman from the window entered.  
"Ah, my pretty maidens," she said, smiling and touching the girls' faces. "Each one delicious, tender, and for my benefit."  
Piper spat on the woman's cheek.  
"Temper, temper, Becky," said the woman.  
"Get away from me you old wench!" said Piper. "And my name is Rebecca."  
"Old wench!" She strangled Rebecca (Piper). "Don't you dare call me a wench again." She calmed down a little and said, "Then again, you never will after tonight, if you know what I mean." She laughed  
She took out a dagger and began cutting Rebecca's hands.  
"Good-bye, Hag!" said Rebecca. "You will pay for your sins. South and North Winds, I do invoke Thee. Come forth and set me free so that I may destroy her!"  
A gentle breeze blew from beneath Rebecca's feet and the locks were unhooked. Rebecca was then carried out of a window that magickally opened to safety. The other girls were soon rescued as well. They thanked Rebecca for her assistance (not that they completely understood it) and the East and West Winds levitated them home.  
Rebecca saw a man with a bag of nails painted red and a Pentagram around his neck.  
"Are you a vampire slayer?" asked Rebecca.  
"Why, yes," said the man. "The legends have it all wrong. _Real_ vampires are killed by red nails, not wooden stakes. And it's the Pentagram that frightens them, not the Cross."  
"Is that so? Well, I know what would make the Council praise and honor you for all eternity. Inside that castle yonder is perhaps one of the most viscous vampires on the face of the Earth. I myself was almost killed by her. The scars on my hands are proof."  
The man ran to tell the Council. While Rebecca was waiting for him to return, she raised up her Power and sent the Four Winds over the castle.  
"Trap the demon inside her house! Let only victims and slayers out!" she commanded.  
Piper awoke from her trance.  
"What happened?" asked Phoebe.  
"A vampire."  
"I didn't know vampires were real. That's so cool!"  
"Trust me, Phoebe. This isn't cool at all."  
"So who were you in your little past life?"  
"Someone named Rebecca. I could do all this stuff with the Winds. They would do anything I wanted Them to."  
"So you were a Witch?"  
"I guess."  
The Book of Shadows began turning its pages again and showed a part entitled "Elizabeth Bathory."  
_In the year 1581 in Transylvania, Countess Elizabeth Bathory was growing old and began resenting herself for her once young outlook was maturing into an old woman.  
She discovered her ancestor, Vlad Dracul (where the Dracula concept originated) had found the secret to eternal youth and power by impaling his Turkish enemies on high stakes in the woods and drinking their blood. He stayed in command of the army until his impaling was discovered and he was taken out of power and executed.  
Bathory ordered that every night, young, virgin, unmarried girls be captured and brought to her castle where she would stab them to death and bathe in and drink the girls' blood. Some 600 girls were killed in the place. This made Bathory an actual vampire-someone who needs to drink human blood and nothing more to survive. One becomes a vampire after drinking human blood every night nonstop for at least one month. It also made her more beautiful. This gave her the name of "Blood Countess."  
Bathory was finally discovered and imprisoned in her castle where she would starve to death. The plan worked, but the vampire actually died from lack of blood, not food.  
What the history books do not know is that the only reason Bathory was ever caught was because one of the girls kidnapped, Rebecca Churn, happened to be a magickal Witch with the Power to command the Four Winds. She used this Power to escape with only a few bruises and revealed Bathory's plan to the Council Of Vampire Slayers.  
When a vampire goes without blood for at least five days, it turns into a ghost that can only be killed by the first person who escaped from it alive, no matter what lifetime the survivor is currently living.  
Bathory's ghost is now magickally trapped inside her castle. Only the reincarnated Rebecca Churn, with her Power over the Winds, can destroy her completely. If Bathory ever drinks human blood again, she will take physical shape and continue with her impales.  
_"I don't get it," said Piper, after reading. "If the Blood Countess has been imprisoned all these years, why would I get a sign of her now?"  
Phoebe got a premonition of some people opening a castle door with crowbars as tourists went inside with cameras. A ghostly hag appeared and bit all of the tourists until they grew old and the hag grew young.  
"Piper, they're reopening Bathory's castle for tourism," said Phoebe. "This is her chance to be young again."  
"There you are," said Prue, coming up the stairs. "Just wanted to tell you I'm off to work. I'll have my cell phone if you need me."  
"We actually might need you," said Piper. And they told Prue all about Piper's regression and Elizabeth Bathory.  
"You know," said Prue, "I could probably astral project to the castle and check it out. Make sure they really are reopening it."  
"That would be great," said Phoebe.  
Prue feel into a deep trance and found herself inside the dungeon of a dark, spooky palace. There were bones, blood, and chains everywhere.  
"Yuck!" said Prue. "I hate this place!"  
She wandered through the dungeon and saw an old hag crawling on the castle floors. She saw Prue through a mirror on the wall and said, "Fresh meat!"  
Prue was horrified to see the hag had no reflection in the mirror.  
"Just about the only thing the old stories have right," said the hag. "No reflection."  
Prue tried sending Bathory across the room, but found her Power had no effect on her. So she moved a bone from the floor and sent it flying towards the hag and she flew backwards through the air.  
"It doesn't matter what you do here, Prue," she said. "Only _she _can kill me. And _she_ left the world centuries ago. And in just a while, I'll be free from this hex!"  
Prue, frightened, projected back.  
"What did you see?" asked Piper.  
"I saw the Blood Countess," said Prue. "She said 'Only she can stop her.' Who's 'she?'"  
"Probably Rebecca," said Piper. "Who I was in a past life. I'm the only one can stop her."  
"Piper, my Power didn't work on the vampire," said Prue. "Yours might not either. And freezing her can't kill her."  
"You're right," said Piper. "But maybe the Wind thing can. Oh, Leo!"  
Leo orbed into the room, embraced Piper, and orbed both of them into Bathory's castle.  
"Do you need me for this?" asked Leo.  
"I think I'll be fine," said Piper.  
Leo disappeared.  
Piper saw the hag crawling around on the floor.  
"Rebecca!" exclaimed the hag.  
"Hello, Blood Countess," said Piper.  
"You're supposed to be dead!"  
"Depends what you mean by 'dead.'"  
"Well, you died once and you'll die again! And then you'll watch from the Heavens as I gather more girls and suck them dry."  
"As long as I'm here, you won't touch anyone!"  
Piper held up her hands and saw that her freezing Power did work on Bathory. Then she could feel a wave of energy building up inside of her and invisible psychic vibrations emerged from her fingertips.  
"Winds, come from North, East, South, West! Send this vampire to her death!"  
The Blood Countess unfroze as strong zephyr flew from all directions at her and she exploded. Piper lost her Wind Power.  
Leo took her hand and sent them back into the attic. Piper sat down, dizzy from it all.  
"Piper, are you all right?" asked Prue.  
"Yeah, I'm all right."  
"And the vamp?" asked Phoebe.  
"She's dead, don't worry. Oh my God! The Smashing Pumpkins!"  
That night, the Smashing Pumpkins went up and played some great songs from their latest _Machina _album as many guests danced to it.  
P3 made thousands of dollars that night and positive vibrations filled the atmosphere,  



End file.
